Comments on: Personal Finance Review – “Living the Dream” Edition http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/personal-finance-review-living-the-dream-edition/ Saving, Earning, and Investing Money Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:22:17 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Adfecto http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/personal-finance-review-living-the-dream-edition/comment-page-1/#comment-60275 Adfecto Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:30:32 +0000 http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/personal-finance-review-living-the-dream-edition/#comment-60275 First, I'm curious how you would quantify healthy vs. unhealthy. I'm sure smokers and the obese would top you list, the problem with that is the data on health care spending does not support your thesis. A study just came out that said it is more expensive to treat HEALTH people (http://www.slate.com/id/2184475/). Even if you could define some characteristics that made a person "unhealthy" you are still missing out on a lot of people who are unhealthy but doesn't fit your metric. What about the skinny people who don't eat any fruits or veggies. What about the people who live under power lines, have lead paint on their walls, or skip preventative medical treatments. My point is that you can never know who is likely to burden the system and who is not. We do not understand disease enough and can not quantify the risks, and if we could should we? How much should a person pay for being unhealthy? 10% more, 20% more, or whatever an actuary determines? Should there be a cap at all? No insurance for those who are too sick or at risk of being sick. That would save all of the healthy people money, until you find that you or someone in your family was unlucky enough to be one of those people. Insurance is about shared risk. If you happen to be the person that works hard to stay healthy you may life longer and be more productive, but should you get to opt out of the risk pool because you of it? I say no. Think about it for a while and do some reading before jumping at the knee jerk reaction. First, I’m curious how you would quantify healthy vs. unhealthy. I’m sure smokers and the obese would top you list, the problem with that is the data on health care spending does not support your thesis. A study just came out that said it is more expensive to treat HEALTH people (http://www.slate.com/id/2184475/). Even if you could define some characteristics that made a person “unhealthy” you are still missing out on a lot of people who are unhealthy but doesn’t fit your metric. What about the skinny people who don’t eat any fruits or veggies. What about the people who live under power lines, have lead paint on their walls, or skip preventative medical treatments. My point is that you can never know who is likely to burden the system and who is not. We do not understand disease enough and can not quantify the risks, and if we could should we?

How much should a person pay for being unhealthy? 10% more, 20% more, or whatever an actuary determines? Should there be a cap at all? No insurance for those who are too sick or at risk of being sick. That would save all of the healthy people money, until you find that you or someone in your family was unlucky enough to be one of those people. Insurance is about shared risk. If you happen to be the person that works hard to stay healthy you may life longer and be more productive, but should you get to opt out of the risk pool because you of it? I say no.

Think about it for a while and do some reading before jumping at the knee jerk reaction.

]]> By: Tina Anderson http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/personal-finance-review-living-the-dream-edition/comment-page-1/#comment-60206 Tina Anderson Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:25:18 +0000 http://www.lazymanandmoney.com/personal-finance-review-living-the-dream-edition/#comment-60206 There are drawbacks to working at home, and it may not always be "living the dream" for some people, but if most Americans could choose, virtually everyone would rather work at home than in an office. There are drawbacks to working at home, and it may not always be “living the dream” for some people, but if most Americans could choose, virtually everyone would rather work at home than in an office.

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